CBS And Other Golf Networks Freaking Out About Ratings Now That Tiger Woods Sucks

Tiger Woods was heading out of Ohio by the time live final-round television coverage of last week’s Bridgestone Invitational began.

That’s become a familiar occurrence as Woods searches for his first victory since a five-month break from golf following a sex scandal. It’s drawn the attention of television networks, led by CBS Corp., the sport’s leading broadcaster with 21 tournaments on the U.S. PGA Tour, including this week’s PGA Championship.

Ratings for the past two events on CBS -- the Greenbrier Classic and the Bridgestone -- have declined as much as 68 percent from the events held the same weeks a year ago, when Woods won them both. During his 13-year reign over the sport, Woods drove up the value of television contracts to as high as the four-year, $850 million deal that expired after the 2006 season, an increase CBS President Sean McManus termed “inflated.” With the PGA Tour’s current contracts with CBS and NBC set to run out in 2012, that value may soon deflate. The tour’s contract with Comcast Corp.’s Golf Channel expires in 2021.